Gigbeth has survived its "difficult second album" phase and artists and organisers are committed to running it next year, the founder of the festival has said.

Clare Edwards said the three days had been a "rollercoaster" with both highs and lows, but lessons had been learnt that would improve the event in 2008.

Ms Edwards said: "I think Gigbeth now has the right to call itself the UK's most diverse music festival.

"But, as one of my colleagues said, this was the difficult second album. Last year we came from nowhere and everyone was was surprised and excited. We took that enthusiasm on board and the festival doubled in size. Perhaps it has grown too big too fast. It's something we will be assessing over the next few months."

Ms Edwards said she had been disappointed by power problems that delayed the opening event last Thursday. She thanked gig-goers who stayed to hear performances by Soweto Kinch, Achanak, Nizlopi and Mr Hudson and the Library.

"During the rehearsal the artists had created pure magic and so it was disappointing that the technical issues took the creative edge off the evening."

"People have been very understanding, but in my mind it wasn't good enough and we are trying to find out what went wrong."

She added that more needed to be done to assess why some venues had been better attended than others, although data on ticket sales is still being collected.

The budget for infrastructure and promoting the event had also been tight, Ms Edwards said, adding that she hoped the city council may help with some costs in future.

"An important part of Gigbeth is that we pay our artists and this takes up a lot of our budget. To put it in perspective: Artsfest costs more than Gigbeth, but its artists perform for free.

"It was quite a struggle to pay the city council for things such as closing Digbeth High Street and sweeping the roads. Much of it we did out of the grant they gave us in the first place!"

The other option was to make the festival more commercial and increase ticket prices, Ms Edwards said.

She added that the Gigbeth conference - which brought together a range of experts from the music industry – had been one of the biggest successes of the three days.

"There is a real feeling that something very special is going on with the conference and it was a real high point."

Ms Edwards also urged those who attended the festival to give feedback thorough an online questionnaire at www.artscentral.co.uk/gigbeth07.

"I think there are lessons to be learnt and we want to hear the good, bad and the ugly so we can do things better.

"The Gigbeth concept is one that really excites artists and I hope we can also make the experience better for those that come to see them."